Sunday, December 29, 2013

655 : Expectations

Haiku Heights has the prompt "Expectations"

The sad pessimist
Is never disappointed.
Never pleased, either.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

654 : Horatio

Sunday Whirl (Wordle #141) presents a list of words
that we must incorporate in a writing piece.  

The words this week are:
think, tip, tincture, tint, integral, synchronize
softly, with, blast, chance, answer, map.


Horatio

He was the admiral of the fleet
Softly spoken though indescrete,
Integral to the French defeat
The glorious Admiral Nelson!

He synchronized the battle plans
With expert eye and steady hands,
Mapped the route to foreign lands,
The admirable Admiral Nelson!

The seas were dark, of leaden tint,
The scene was set with sail and flint
Cannons made the woodwork splint---ter
All eyes upon the Admiral Nelson!

Dust and smoke blocked out the sun,
You think the apocalypse had come,
But victory when the day was done,
Three cheers for the Admiral Nelson!

But he copped a blast of wayward shot,
“Kiss me, Hardy!”? – it matters not,
How to stop the body rot---ting?
What to do with the Admiral Nelson?

The answer came, both quick and dandy,
Tip him into a barrel, handy,
Like a new age cumquat brandy,
Home preserving for the Admiral Nelson!

When the fleet was back in port
The bos’un had a grim report:
There remained no marinade of any sort
A rum to-do for the Admiral Nelson!

The crew had drunk the barrel dry
Of the tincture of the naval guy
No-one thought to wonder why
It tasted of the Admiral Nelson!

Lady Hamilton rued his sad demise,
Never more would his column rise,
So the empire supplied a larger size
And a State farewell to Admiral Nelson.

So sailors, should you chance to roam,
Be an admiral and not a drone,
And get a column of your own,
Look up to the Admiral Nelson!
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---


Saturday, December 28, 2013

653 : Divertimenti

Three Word Wednesday requires participants
to use the three words of the week in a composition.
The words this week were crisp, exquisite and magnificent.

Divertimenti

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart,
A prodigious talent,
Producing exquisite music
With magnificent intent.
Crisp and bright,
A music for the night.

But think—
If he’d been born today,
He would do the programming part
For a start-up in Bombay.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

652 : High Rise

Imaginary Garden with Real Toads has the prompt of 'bamboo'.

High Rise

Bamboo forests.
Quick growing,
Towering upwards,
With no interaction.
Sleek, tall and discrete,
Tubular belles.
Compartmentalised.

The wind
Whistles
Mournfully
Around them,
Through them.
They sway slightly
And moan to the sky.
As solid as they are,
They are largely 
Empty.

Apartment blocks.
In green.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

Thursday, December 26, 2013

651 : The Deficiency of Youth

Picture from Red Dirt Girl, I think (Tumblr)

Theme Thursday has the prompt 'Youth'.

The Deficiency of Youth

Time,
And hence age,
Gives a wisdom,
An aptitude
To apply 
Skills,
Techniques
Beyond
The functional.
Embracing
The subtleties 
Of which the raw
Mechanical
Energy of youth 
Is completely
Oblivious.
Youth knows how.
Age knows why.
And also—
Why not.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

Sunday, December 22, 2013

650 : Gifts

Haiku Heights has the prompt "Gifts"

The gifts worth having
Are not those bought with money
But freely given.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

649 : The Piper

Mad Kane has a weekly limerick challenge.
She provides the first line,
The rest is up to us:

The Piper

The bravery of someone who blows
On bagpipes, is hard to suppose.
As they pump and exhale
It lets out a high wail—
Like a cat in its final death throes.

---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

648 : The Agency

Sunday Whirl (Wordle #140) presents a list of words
that we must incorporate in a writing piece.  

The words this week are:
spider, echo, clear, level, attend, pulverize
intact, fly, shuttle, means, follow, listen, split.


The Agency

They build webs
Lightly
Quietly
Always listening
And attending
To vibrations,
Echoes of activity
Of interest;
Clear messages 
To attend to,
To shuttle across to,
To follow to the source
And pulverize,
Figuratively.
Or literally.
The small fly,
The small fry,
The little guy,
Who, at some level,
Has tweaked 
Their tendrils,
Tweaked their interest,
And though captured intact
The mind will be split
From the body—
Stress positions,
Ways and means,
Enhanced interrogation.
They are a spider
Multiple eyes,
Multiple arms
Venomous.

We should feel safer
But we don’t.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

647 : The Sarong

The Sarong

The folk who devised the sarong
Have a history incredibly strong.
They’ve worn it, it appears,
For thousands of years,
But it’s amazing it’s lasted this long.

The sarong is kept classically sewn
While the rest of society’s grown.
Sure, it’s casual and light
But there are no pockets in sight
You can use to store your iPhone.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

Saturday, December 21, 2013

646 : The Knight Errant


Prompted by recent events,
But really just a fictional doodle.

The Knight Errant.
Wherever do you keep your horse?
And who scoops up the crap it leaves behind?” 
― Myra McEntire.

Waving the flag for a lady,
And fighting whom she decrees,
He’s a member of a tiny band
Who few can really understand
And, acting rather mercenary,
Doing what is necessary
To be the perfect emissary,
Valiant knight from another land,
Waving the flag.

The lady, of course, can clearly see
The perfect opportunity
To remove the knights she cannot stand.
And if they think they’ll win her hand,
The chivalrous will always be
Waving the flag.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

Thursday, December 19, 2013

645 : The Taunter

Three Word Wednesday requires participants
to use the three words of the week in a composition.
The words this week were combative, represent and sluggish.

Joe Hockey, our poor excuse for a treasurer
taunted General Motors, dared them to leave the country. 
So they did.  Good job, Joe.


The Taunter

Some people, 
Itching for a fight,
Are needlessly combative.
And pound their particular pulpit,
Dull and uncreative.

You find
They wield a sluggish mind,
They sit
And say they represent
The holy forces of The Right
But evidence is absent.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

Sunday, December 15, 2013

644 : The Caretaker

Sunday Whirl (Wordle #139) presents a list of words
that we must incorporate in a writing piece.  

The words this week are:

fix, apart, snatch, cover, pair, angel
waves, simple, box, clay, lies, moon


The Caretaker

Beneath the moon,
Beneath the clay,
In a simple box,
Lies a simple man.

He was a believer,
This simple man.

He believed 
That a celestial father,
Attended by a pair or so
Of luminous angels,
Would never, ever
Permit our world,
His world, 
Genesis one one,
To fall apart,
To come undone,
No matter 
How bad it got,
How hot it got.
It would never happen.

He believed that
No matter 
How many storms
And crashing waves
And searing droughts
And floods, 
And fires, 
And blizzards
Were visited upon us
To cover our world,
With pain, 
And suffering 
And death,
All within our control,
But beyond our will,
That his diety,
His God,
Would protect him,
That all would be well.

He believed that
God,
His God,
Would fix it all,
Would snatch him,
A true believer,
But a negligent caretaker,
From the unfortunate mess
That he had made
To a heaven 
Built of his desiring.
Never seeing that 
He had made a hell
From the one heaven that 
He would ever be given,

This simple man,
In a simple box,
Beneath the clay,
Beneath the moon.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---




Thursday, December 12, 2013

643 : The Office Christmas Party

Three Word Wednesday requires participants
to use the three words of the week in a composition.
The words this week were highlight, instruct and submit.

Last year, after my workplace Xmas party,
one of the senior management (female!) reached over
and twiddled my left nipple.  
Presumably part of the 
staff recognition program.


The Office Christmas Party

I’m not here to instruct, of course;
Just giving some advice—
It’s now that office parties hit
Or tweak, to be precise.

What fun! 
But
highlights
the risks
you run.

Submit
If you must
To the false façades
But wear a jumper
Thick and coarse,
And a pair of 
Nipple guards.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

642 : Ode to a Cow

My thanks to Foss, Denmark, for the physical prompt.

Ode to a Cow.

Frankie is a Friesian
A special kind of cow,
Frankie is my saviour:
Let me tell you how.

Frankie is a stress cow
A foamy rubber ball
Frankie can be screwed up
And thrown against the wall.

Frankie is a Friesian
Made of squidgy stuff,
Frankie takes a lot of flack,
You can treat her rough.

Frankie is a stress cow
With stumpy little feet
Frankie lets you toss her
And is stoically discrete.

Frankie is a Friesian
Who will never irritate;
Frankie can be trusted -
A most endearing trait.

Frankie is a stress cow
Who helps me through the day
Frankie stands and listens
And she never turns away.

Frankie is a Friesian
A special kind of cow,
Frankie is as dumb as dirt
But I like her anyhow.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

Sunday, December 08, 2013

641 : A Life in the Day

Sunday Whirl (Wordle #138) presents a list of words
that we must incorporate in a writing piece.  

The words this week are:

prison, cloak, become, lens, goods, cash,
pursuit, skirt, cruel, wild, Venus, beloved


A Life in the Day

We emerge
From a prison 
Of sorts,
A safe house
Some say,
Into the light,
Into a world
That is harsh,
Wild even, 
Wildly uneven,
Sometimes comforting
Often cruel,
And frequently unfair.

What we do,
What we become,
In our pursuit 
Of purpose,
How we skirt, 
—Or not,
Disasters 
And the vagaries
Of our fate
Is as unpredictable
As the landing 
Of a falling leaf.
Our life when viewed 
Is through a lens
But darkly so.

Venus,
The Morning Star,
The Evening Star,
The goddess of love,
Is with us
All the way.
Who will be
Our ‘beloved’?
And who us for them?
And for how long?
And why?

If we follow
The approved
Pathway
We will worship
Cash
And accumulate
Goods.
But of what value
Are these things?

The day
Of our life,
The small flicker
In the fabric of time
Will, like the sun,
Rise,
Peak,
And decline,
Until the night, 
Like a cloak,
Is laid upon us.
We must use the time
Wisely.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

Friday, December 06, 2013

640 : Friday


Friday

It’s Friday tonight
I can turn off the alarm—
And get up early.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

639 : Once a jackal


Once a Jackal.

The jackal,
A street fighter,
A brawler,
Cunning,
Conniving,
Sly as they come,
With awkward gait
And imitation smile,
Hunting
As a pack,
Can bring down 
A leopard.

But
A Jackal
Will always
Be a jackal.

And
A leopard
Will always
Be a leopard.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

638 : Mandate? Blind Date!

Three Word Wednesday requires participants
to use the three words of the week in a composition.
The words this week were Brief, Expose and Insist.

Mandate?  Blind date!

It was lost, more than being won,
A voter’s stern protest.
Now they insist they have a mandate
And expose their hairy chests,
And scare the people living there.
Too late, they recoil in disbelief.

The marriage — an arranged one,
The honeymoon was brief.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

637 : Once in a blue moose...

A work colleague tried to tell me that Swedish Mooses
were one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gases on the planet. 
I disagreed, of course, but a limerick seemed appropriate.

Once in a blue moose…

A moose that lives in cold Sweden
Does little ‘xcept feedin’ and breedin’,
It’s said that its farting
Is thoroughly disheartening
And speeds the ice cap’s recedin’
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

Sunday, November 24, 2013

636 : First Flight

Sunday Scribblings has the prompt ‘Flight’.
It’s spring in Australia and the air is full of flapping.

First Flight.

All fluff and beak
And adrenalin,
Claws
Grasp
The branch 
Tightly.
Until chirps
(Or nudges)
Of encouragement
Pry them free
And, with a panicky
Squawk!
Take a leap of faith,
And fluff,
And adrenalin,
And fly!
Like an eggbeater.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

635 : The Observer

Sunday Whirl (Wordle #136) presents a list of words
that we must incorporate in a writing piece.  

The words this week are:

habits, create, however, virtue, regard, gap,
cycle, undoing, lessen, choice, gathering, suffering

In a week where Australia has been found to be hacking 
the Indonesian president's wife's phone, this seemed topical.
But spying, of course, comes in many guises.


The Observer.

Please, please
Don’t call it spying.
Call it 
Information gathering
And regard it 
As a virtue,
As a choice we make
To know our neighbours,
As ourselves.

Cycling 
Finely,
Intimately,
Through their thoughts
Quietly, 
Secretly, 
On the side,
Is one of those habits
That is hard to stop
That is hard to drop
And it’s good for us to know...

We rationalize.

However
One man’s virtue 
Can be another man’s 
Undoing;
Attempts to lessen
Misunderstanding
To reduce the gap, 
As it were,
Between what is said
And what is meant
Can lead to suffering
If what you learn,
The truth of the matter,
Hurts.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

Friday, November 22, 2013

634 : The Moppet

dVerse Poets challenges us to write a Nerudan ode.

The Moppet

Sweet and pure
To the viewer,
All flounce and bounce,
And basely pure,
A coquette
With hair hot-curled
And perfect skin
Brushed 
And glowing
To defy her age,
In frocks
And smocks
And bobby socks
And yet her eyes
Are knowing
Of her role—
A toy thing
In a corporate world.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

Thursday, November 21, 2013

633 : Shackled

Three Word Wednesday requires participants
to use the three words of the week in a composition.
The words this week were bitter, manipulate and tight.


Shackled

Politicians manipulate—
A universal rule.
When things are tight 
They lie like thieves
And take us all for fools.

Docile
We feign a limpid smile.

Grieve, but passively collude—
Collude and so capitulate
To bitter servitude.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

632 : Doomed to Fry


“God is a woman”, says my spy,
"All men are doomed to forever fry:
They know perfectly well
They’ll be sent down to Hell,
To roast, 
But they'll never know why."
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

Monday, November 18, 2013

631 : A fellow who'd frequently jest...

Mad Kane has a weekly limerick challenge.
She provides the first line,
The rest is up to us:


A fellow who’d frequently jest
Has sadly been laid to his rest.
They thought he was joking
When he said he was choking,
As a gag, it was one of his best.

◊◊◊

Godiva was speaking in jest
When she offered to horse-ride, undressed.
But when put on the spot,
She discarded the lot—
Those who peeked were clearly impressed.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

Sunday, November 17, 2013

630 : The Professional Woman

Sunday Whirl (Wordle #135) presents a list of words
that we must incorporate in a writing piece.  

The words this week are:

race, silky, lanky, whiskey, puddle, pain, mouth
isolate, murky, breath, marsh, razor, befuddled


The Professional Woman.

The Youth
Full of promise
She stands proud;
Tall, lanky, silky haired,
A bloom is seen upon her:
The first warm peach of summer.

The Woman
Life can turn on a razor’s edge,
Decisions taken lightly,
Lead to murky and dark places.
The urgent breath from the mouths 
Of strange men 
Warms her neck 
And pays her bills.

The Old Woman
Her attractions have faded
And she lives in a marsh,
A swamp of befuddled pain
And whiskey driven relief.
Unloved and unwanted
She sits and watches the rain.

The Grave
Life, we are told, is a race
Some win, some struggle
And many lose.
Some lose worse than others.
And take up small plots
In isolated corners, 
Unmarked and unlamented.
Rain pock marks the puddles,
But it too is uncaring.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---


Thursday, November 14, 2013

629 : Best served cold.

Three Word Wednesday requires participants
to use the three words of the week in a composition.
The words this week were aggressive, heighten and limited.

Best served cold.

Things can be thrown aggressively
And bridges can be burnt;
In the process the mind shuts down—
No lessons can be learnt.
Sadness follows from this madness
Around a limited sense of right.
Revenge is taken progressively
Which heightens the delight.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

628 : A woman whose morals were lax...

Mad Kane has a regular limerick challenge.
She provides the first line,
the rest is up to us.

Illustration provided by a
New South Welsh reader.

A woman whose morals were lax,
Despite some corrective firm smacks,
Dressed up in deep scarlet,
And lived as the harlots
Who spent all the night on their backs.

◊◊

A duck, whose bowels were quite lax,
Had severe diahorrea attacks.
He thought it unfair
That he missed Medicare
And had to be treated by quacks.

◊◊

A fellow was terribly lax
In filling and filing his tax.
But in the auditor’s pursuit
They missed all his loot
Buried in the garden, in sacks.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

Sunday, November 10, 2013

627 : No Man's Land

Sunday Whirl (Wordle #134) presents a list of words
that we must incorporate in a writing piece.  

The words this week are:

buckle, gain, miss, instant, navigate, grace
visions, humming, drill, dignity, years, stride

Tomorrow, November 11th, is Armistice Day.


No Man’s Land

The poppies wave in the breeze,
Vibrant.  Enchanting.  
Deep red.  Blood red.
But with black hearts.
Visions of grace and dignity over the years,
They are symbols of missed opportunities,
Symbols of the bloody waste
That is human warfare.

Every year we look at them, 
These beautiful poppies,
And our mind navigates the ugly 
And painful story that they embody,
To a prettier place.

We see visions of young men
Proudly striding in their uniforms,
Cleanly pressed, buckles gleaming,
Marching, in a well polished drill,
Passing through our streets.
Triumphant.
Crowds cheer, wave flags,
Humming patriotic songs 
As the procession passes from view,
Happy that for a brief instant 
They shared the glory,
The clean, crisp sanitized glory.

No battlefield for them,
No cold, wide-eyed panic,
No stench of death and decay.
No holding a dying compatriot.
They do not share these things,
They stay on the warm side of no man’s land.
Where the sweet poppies grow.

But like a low thunder on the horizon,
The threat of war is still there, always there.
One has to ask, for all who have died,
What did we gain?
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

.

Friday, November 08, 2013

626 : Jemima Paddy Duck


Idle thoughts from a Balinese rice field…

Jemima Paddy Duck
(Apologies to Beatrix Potter).

This is the story of a duck
Who lived amongst the rice.
She grew quite fat on worms and snails
And life was rather nice.

But for every ying there is a yang,
For light there is a shade;
A balance in the universe –
What grows must too decay.

And so the duck with the lucky life
Met the axe’s force
And appeared upon the dinner plate
With rice and hoi-sin sauce.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

Monday, November 04, 2013

625 : The Coffee Grinder



Posted from beside a pool in Bali.

The Coffee Grinder

He is old, somewhere over eighty,
Brown, creased and nearly toothless;
Indelible signs of a long life, well lived.
With pride, he showed us his coffee factory,
A wonder of function and innovation.

Filtered through a translator,
He talked of the beans
And their passage through the process.
Of the sorting, the roasting, the sieving and grinding 
That lead to the fine, brown, aromatic powder
Stored in lined, woven bags.
He urged us to smell and we obeyed.

Coffee will never be the same again;
All future cups will be infused with the echo
Of the memories
Of the aroma 
Of the old man
Met in that dark building
In the Balinese jungle.

He also talked,
Through the translator,
Of his love for his wife,
Of his loneliness since she had died.
As we left, I went to shake his hand.
But instead he put his arms around me,
Embraced me warmly
And, with tears in his eyes,
Asked “When will you be coming back”
No translation was necessary.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Gone Troppo


Running off to the tropics for three weeks.
Play nicely while I'm away.
-

624 : The Cinema



Sunday Whirl (Wordle #131) presents a list of words
that we must incorporate in a writing piece.  

The words this week are:

amalgam, gravel, trash, nothing, cheat, vacant, 
brick, mouth, tentacles, fence, notices, everything, balance


The Cinema

We sit, as zombies,
Focussed on the screen in front.
Watching everything
But noticing nothing.
Cars explode, as they never would.
Slimy and cupped tentacles explore.  
Prodding.  Hunting.  Threatening.
Husbands cheat on wives,
Ruin lives. Or not. 
Singlets and bras survive explosions.
While brick fences offer scant resistance.
Ammunition is in plentiful supply.
Story lines vary.  Some trash.  Others more so.
All is black and white, good guys bad guys,
There is no balance.  No shades of grey.

We sit, as zombies,
Focussed on the screen in front.
Our faces, not vacant, but animated.
We laugh as one,
We scream as one,
Like a room of ruminants, 
We eat as one.
The rhythmic passage of crisps, bag to mouth,
Replicating a battalion of troops,
Marching on a gravel path.
Toffees, the arch enemy of amalgam, 
Sucked in open-mouthed absorption.
Popcorn, in vast tubs, comes and go.
The low nutritional input from the screen
Closely matches the viewer’s diet.
Which, I wonder, does the most harm?
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

Thursday, October 17, 2013

623 : No wonder he never married.


Three Word Wednesday requires participants
to use the three words of the week in a composition.
The words this week were daunting, fastidious & intensify.

No wonder he never married.

A habit that’s daunting to relate,
Intensified to a daily debate:
With precision most hideous,
The guy was fastidious
How peas were arranged on his plate.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

Wednesday, October 09, 2013

622 : The Nest


Artist - Lucy Newton

Sunday Whirl (Wordle #129) presents a list of words
that we must incorporate in a writing piece.  

The words this week are:

chance, nest, secret, clever, swept, ripe, 
blinked, stars, basket, flesh, saw, hand


The Nest

It was a chance meeting,
All first meetings are.
She saw him before he saw her,
Saw him walking alone 
Along the unswept, 
Flower-edged country path
That skirted the copse.

The copse where the first berries appeared,
Where small and noisy children
With sticky hands and wicker baskets
Fossicked for the plump flesh of ripe fruit.
She saw them as they reached past her
But they didn’t see her.
Anxiety fluttered her breast
But people, no matter how clever,
Don’t see what they are not looking for.
That’s why they no longer see the stars.

The man was different.
He walked as if it was all that he had to do,
As if it was the most important thing in the world,
As if, at that moment, it was his world.

He saw her, of course.
Their eyes met.
And, as if sharing a secret of the universe,
Locked together for a moment,
Acknowledged each other,
Blinked,
And moved on.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---